Pakistan sentences ex-MP to death

Pakistan is trying to crack down on drug trafficking

By Shahid Malik in Lahore

A former member of parliament in Pakistan has been sentenced to death on charges of drug trafficking.

Munawwar Munj and his two alleged associates were found guilty by a special anti-narcotics court after a trial that lasted six years.

Seven people, including a newspaper editor, were sentenced to death on similar charges in the Pakistani province of Punjab this year.

Munawwar Munj was arrested six years ago when he was a member of the National Assembly.

Munawwar Munj was arrested six years ago

He was also a member of the parliament's standing committee against drug trafficking and an influential member of the governing Pakistan Peoples Party.

He was arrested after the country's Anti-Narcotics Force intercepted his driver and bodyguard allegedly with 35 kilos of heroin and almost an equal amount of cannabis.

Editor sentenced

Police said the drugs were being taken from Lahore to Mr Munj's constituency in the neighbouring district of Sheikhupura.

The three refused to put up a defence in the court saying that the police failed to prove the charges against them.

The judgement on Mr Munj and two others follows similar death sentences on at least four others this year including a senior journalist.

The owner and editor of English language daily, Frontier Post, Rehmat Shah Afridi, was found guilty of drug smuggling in June.

Thirty five people have so far been given death sentences in the province of Punjab in the last four years.

But none of them has been executed pending appeals before higher courts.